Friday, June 04, 2010

Big Brother in your jeans

I felt something scratchy digging into my skin inside the jeans I had on, and discovered it was this (below). It was made of thin metal strips and was a little sticky. It was sewn in, with a little cloth patch barrier sewn on top, and I guess the cloth patch kept me from feeling this bugger before.

I got these Old Navy jeans at Goodwill, so they've been worn and washed who knows how many times before I got them, and I've worn/washed them quite a bit too.

Here is an excellent rant about these things, which are radio-frequency ID (RFID) chips. Attaching something like that to clothing in the store is not unusual, but apparently Old Navy is not willing to remove it for you as a store normally would for those thumb-tack gizmos.

At least I didn't go through the embarrassment of getting stopped for suspected shoplifting like the guy at the linked post, but I can't remember the last time I was in an Old Navy store. It's been a few years.

2 comments:

I'd guess the store employees wouldn't remove them as policy since, if returned sans chip, they'd be easily jack-able.

Not that that's a defensible excuse to have frickin' chips in jeans.

But I believe about every product that goes through WalMart is chipped and soon all grocery store and other items. I still hear about he fridge that'll read your levels and expiration dates and make your shopping list or place a delivery order for you.